Pressure Canning Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

OutdrgirlJuly 14, 2012

Hoping someone can help. I'm new to pressure canning. I ran across this spaghetti sauce recipe on cooks.com and whipped it up. It's getting close to being ready to add to jars. I was fine until I ran across this forum, now I'm wondering if it's okay to pressure can it like the directions provide? I would go ahead and WB instead, but I'm also canning tomatoes today-so canner is in use. Thoughts?

Makes 12 quarts. Put into a canner 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil, swish around so the whole bottom is oiled. Add 36 ripe tomatoes or 7 quarts canned. Prepare ripe tomatoes as if for canning, from hot water to cold and peel Add:

12 onions, cut up

6 to 8 green peppers

2 c. chopped mushrooms (optional)

1 1/2 tsp. pepper

4 cloves garlic, cut up

8 (5 oz.) cans tomato paste

2 tsp. salt

8 tsp. sugar

2 tbsp. oregano

2 tbsp. basil

2 tsp. thyme

12 bay leaves (put in a piece of net and tie up; then add to mixture)

Add rest of ingredients. Stir well and simmer slowly 2 hours, stirring OFTEN so it won't stick to bottom. Remove cloth with bay leaves. Put into sterilized jars, wipe tops and seal with lids. Leave 1 inch space in each jar. Process in hot water bath for 70 minutes or in pressure cooker for 35 minutes. Makes about 12 quarts.

They claim that recipe can be BWB processed? No way! There is no acid in that recipe at all unless the canned tomato paste has some citric acid in it and it still wouldn't be near enough at all.

It isn't even safe to pressure can with all that oil, an unknown pH and the density would be off the charts with no added liquid and that large amount of low acid ingredients. Freezing is the only option with that recipe just as Deanna said.

Sorry but if you are new to pressure canning then you need to stick with the tested and approved sources only.

I doubled the recipe because of the quanity of tomatoes I had and also cut the onions down to using only 7 total. I thought too that 12 was a TON! I ommited the oil and the bay leaves btw. With the changes I made is it safe to pressure can? Sorry I forgot to mention the things 'I' did differently-would've helped you huh. I really appreciate your help.

At the time of opening a canning jar and serving, then and only then do I add sauteed chopped peppers, sauteed mushrooms, or any other 'wet' ingredients !!!

The cooked down tomatoes by themselves may be near the 'borderline' of safely low pH ... therefore I don't add anything except 'dry' spices to the basic sauce I am canning. I also individually add the 1/2 teaspooon per pint of canning salt to make sure that there is sufficient salt concentration in each and every jar to 'discourage' bacteria growth.

There is just no way to know. We can't know the pH or how stable that pH would be on the shelf. We can't know the density or the length of pressure canner processing time that would be needed.

That is the problem with using untested, unapproved recipes. It is all guess work and guessing is just too risky. Canning is very different from cooking and has a whole different set of safety guidelines. We ignore them at our own risk.

As we said, you can freeze it with no worries. But canning it for shelf storage wouldn't be considered safe by normal standards.

Wish I would've found this site before I used cooks.com. Thanks for all the helpful advice and suggested recipes. Off to the freezer this batch goes. :o) For future, can a person adjust the seasonings like oregano, basil etc. on a tested recipe and still be safe for PC? And I'm talking dry seasoning not onions, peppers. Looks like I some things to learn. :o)

You can always adjust dry seasonings, never fresh, with no problems except for the effect they may have on flavor after shelf storage. Go easy because some of them will turn bitter or intensify during shelf storage.

Cooks.com has some great recipes...for cooking. But any online canning recipes except for those from NCHFP, freshpreserving.com, and a few other sites often discussed here need to be evaluated carefully. There are many sites out there that are very risky.

And of course any home canner needs a copy of the Ball Blue Book for starters.

Thanks Dave! Glad I found this place. :o)
I ended up with 7 qts, 7 pint & 1/2's, and 3 pints of Spaghetti Sauce. Then 45 quarts of tomatoes as well. I'm drained for the day, but well worth it. Very rewarding. :o)

I pressure can my tomato ragu with onions, mushrooms, peppers, garlic and meat all the time. Every ingredient in the finished sauce has a specific time it needs to be pressure canned if you were canning it alone.

I can my sauce according to the item that needs the longest time. In my case the ground beef needs pressure canning at 10 lbs of pressure for 75 min.(pints) and 90 minutes (quarts) So I go with that for the whole sauce.

Researching the pressure canning times for individual ingredients in any recipe will yield ideas for how long a component recipe will need to be pressure canned for

As far as the oil goes I can't imagine why you would need that much oil in a recipe. I have never canned anything in oil mainly because there is so much risk for the oil to ruin the seal if it gets on the edge of the jar or lid.

Finally-

Always be careful of extremely thick sauces and purees. They may be too thick to get hot (240 degrees) all the way through and should not be canned. Pumpkin puree for example.

I can my sauce according to the item that needs the longest time. In my case the ground beef needs pressure canning at 10 lbs of pressure for 75 min.(pints) and 90 minutes (quarts) So I go with that for the whole sauce. Researching the pressure canning times for individual ingredients in any recipe will yield ideas for how long a component recipe will need to be pressure canned for

That is your option of course, your risk to take. But it is not something that is normally advocated on this forum, especially for new canners, for several reasons.

First, because the "use the time for the ingredient requiring the longest time" is a very old guideline. Second, it fails to take into consideration the resulting effects on quality of using unnecessarily long processing times. For example, the approved spaghetti sauce with meat recipes require only 60-70 mins. of processing.

Third, it doesn't always adequately compensate for the issues of density, retarded heat penetration, pH, and the lack of shelf stability of that ph. And lastly because it encourages the belief that one can safely make up their own recipes and/or safely can just about anything they wish. Both of those practices are normally discouraged, especially so when lab tested and approved instructions already exist.